ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT
Date: September 6, 1995
Dept. File No. TRB
TO: Vancouver City Council
FROM: Corporation Counsel
SUBJECT: Proposed Charter Amendments
RECOMMENDATION
THAT the City Manager and Corporation Counsel be instructed to
request and pursue passage of the Charter amendments attached
hereto as Appendix "A".
CITY MANAGER'S COMMENTS
The City Manager RECOMMENDS approval.
COUNCIL POLICY
There is no specific policy relating to the recommendation, although
Council has considered the subject matter of some of the suggested
amendments.
BACKGROUND
In late July the Ministry of Municipal Affairs advised that the
legislative schedule they had been provided with required that we
provide them with a general description of the amendments we would be
requesting by August 15, 1995. City departments were advised of this
and requested to provide the Corporation Counsel with any suggested
amendments. These suggested amendments were communicated to Victoria
with the advice that there had not been time to review them carefully or
to attach definitive priorities to them, and that we would give them a
revised list indicating priorities.
Ministry staff are required to submit any amendments to legislation they
are requesting by September 8th. With that in mind, the City Manager
convened a meeting of representatives of interested departments on
September 5th. - 2 -
At that meeting it was agreed we would recommend that Council submit a
request for Charter amendments as described in Schedule "A", under the
categories which they appear in that Schedule and having the priorities
assigned to them therein.
As will be apparent from Appendix "A", the tight time line imposed on us
results in this report not containing the language of the actual
amendments. Indeed some have not advanced beyond the conceptual stage.
Council will be kept informed as to the actual language of the
amendments as it is drafted by legislative counsel and reviewed by City
staff.
* * * * *
APPENDIX "A"
Amendments Sought By The City in Order of Its Corporate Priorities
1. Amendments to the Sewers and Scavenging provisions of the Charter
which would enable these services to be charged out as a utility
based on use. It is proposed that the Capital Cost of the
utilities be included in the fee for service, and this will require
a minor amendment to the borrowing and debenture sections of the
Charter, providing that the cost of borrowing for these utilities
would be paid for out of the fee for service rather than out of the
general levy. What is contemplated is that we would provide these
services on a basis similar to the basis on which water is
presently provided. A related amendment would be made to the water
utilities section to make all utility powers consistent. (Reports
in Council's package refers to this issue.)
2. An amendment to the Development Cost Levy sections of the Vancouver
Charter to provide that the City may include, within the cost of a
Capital Project, the value of any land the City contributes to the
project. This amendment was requested in 1995. The request arises
out of our proposal to implement the "Arbutus Neighbourhood Plan".
The plan contemplates a park. The preferred location for the park
is a City owned piece of land presently used as a works yard. What
would be desired would be to devote the land to the project,
recover its value through DCL's, and use it to purchase other land.
We anticipate there will, in the future, be other capital projects
which could be maximized by a contribution of City land. (As
noted, this amendment was requested in 1995.)
3. An amendment to the Planning and Zoning provisions in the Charter
(566(5)) which would permit Council, after a public hearing, to
enact a Zoning By-law which would not come into force or take
effect until a date upon which the City Clerk filed with Council a
certificate certifying that the conditions Council imposed, to be
fulfilled prior to the creation of the development rights, had been
fulfilled. The basis of the request is the length of time and the
costs incurred by a developer of a "mega project" between the date
of the public hearing and the date of enactment. A developer is
subject to potentially heavy losses should an election intervene
and the by-law not be enacted on the conditions approved at the
public hearing. On the other side of the coin, the drain on City
manpower attempting to complete negotiations and documentation
necessitated by the conditions is such that there comes a point at
which a moratorium has to be put on applications for major
rezonings. Perhaps an existing example will illustrate the
problem. Prior to the 1996 election an attempt will be made
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to enact five major rezonings as part of the "Coal Harbour" and
"Concord" mega projects. In order to do this, hundreds of
agreements will have to be negotiated and drafted and the
developers will have to expend large sums of money. The resulting
workload exhausts the capacity of the City to deal with these types
of zonings until November 1996. Should there be a significant
change on Council there is the potential for work having been done
for nothing and expenses incurred lost. (This is a new proposal to
improve processing major rezoning applications.)
4. An amendment to section 206C to make the qualifying period of
service for a pension by members of Council compatible with the
vesting period prescribed in the Pensions (Municipal) Act. (This
is to implement Compensation Task Force recommendation.)
5. An amendment to provide that Council may by by-law designate an
employee or employees or police officer and bestow upon them the
power to order premises immediately vacated where there is a danger
to the life or safety of any persons. (To enable effective action
against illegal and unsafe gatherings i.e., rave parties.)
6. An amendment to consolidate the several powers contained in the
Vancouver Charter giving various City officials a power to enter
premises and to extend this power to clarify that it applies to
entry to provide emergency services and to turn off security or
other alarms that have sounded to the disturbance of a
neighbourhood for more than a designated time. (This will permit a
more effective response to safety and quality of neighbourhood
issues.)
7. An amendment to provide that Council may by by-law designate an
employee or employees and bestow upon them the power to board up
premises where entry was obtained by forced entry in an emergency;
or where the premises have been left vacant and are being occupied
or are easily capable of being occupied without permission of the
owner. The amendments to provide that the City can recover the
costs of boarding up from the occupant. (This will permit an
immediate response to premises left vulnerable by fire, break-in
and secure unacceptable vacant/abandoned buildings.)
8. Amendments to section 401 and 401A and possibly 373 to provide that
the rating by-law can be applied to authenticated roll as altered
by supplementary rolls received prior to a designated date
(probably May 1). This would eliminate the need to prepare
separate notices for those properties included within the
supplementary rolls. (To provide administrative efficiencies.)
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Amendments to Legislation Considered Important But Which Might Be Better
Made To Other Provincial Legislation
1. An amendment to Part IX of the Charter [Buildings] which would
authorize the City to enact provisions requiring that the
structural elements of the design drawings prepared by the design
engineer be reviewed by a qualified structural engineer. We have
discussed this with the engineering profession and we understand
they may prefer amending their Act to address the issue. We see
the merit of doing it under their Act, but feel it important that
the issue be addressed by the Provincial Government (we would
pursue this only if there was no likelihood that the system would
be created under an Act of broader application).
2. An amendment to the Vancouver Charter to provide that Council could
by by-law require that various of the construction trades be
qualified in a manner prescribed in the by-law. As with the
previous suggested amendment we believe this matter is best
addressed in more general provincial legislation. The issue is
becoming increasingly important and we are putting this forward
only as an alternative if general legislation of the Province has
not been put forward.